edpManagement Systems
for Health Safety + Environment
health, safety and environment consultants
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Organising
Your People in Health and Safety
Organisation is the means whereby you operate your health and safety arrangements in practice.
Scope
Organisation should cover the following aspects of Health and Safety:
Communication
You have a legal duty to ensure your employees, and others who are affected by your organisation's activities, are aware of your health and safety policy and the arrangements that are in place for implementing it.
Consultation
You have a legal duty to consult with your employees (or their representatives) when establishing health and safety policy and arrangements. The means of consultation may vary but often takes the form of Health and Safety Committee Meetings.
Competency
All your employees must be competent to carry out their duties in a manner that does not result in danger to themselves or others.
Training is an important contributor to competent employees. It ought to include generic health and safety issues, along with job specific training.
Another vital aspect of Competency is to only employ persons who have the specified training and qualifications to undertake certain hazardous tasks.
Coordination
You must properly coordinate all health and safety organisation and arrangements to ensure a safe working environment. This requires you to have processes in place to prevent gaps or conflicts in health and safety, resulting from changes to organisation and/or arrangements.
Control
You need to have planning and implementation arrangements in place that ensure the Health and Safety Management System operates correctly. They must also be regularly monitored to ensure they are being operated satisfactorily in practice.
In addition to accident prevention, these should include processes for Evaluating Performance, Management Review and Continuous Improvement.
Culture
You need to emphasise and reinforce positive behaviour, which helps control risks, and generally promotes a positive health and safety culture.
HSG 65
By way of illustration, typical organisational provisions might include:
- Appointing Health and Safety competent persons to work closely with the nominated Health and Safety Director.
- Appointing competent persons to specific aspects of health and safety, such as Fire Wardens and First Aiders.
- Providing means for consultation between management and staff (or their representatives). This might include, for example, appointing Health and Safety Representatives and conducting regular Safety Committee Meetings.
- Effectively communicating health and safety information. The approach adopted should include appointing persons to ensure information is kept up to date.
- Providing effective means for sourcing health and safety training, delivering the training, maintaining records and ensuring all persons who need training actually receive it.
- Ensuring a shared common understanding of the organisation's vision, values and beliefs. A positive health and safety culture is fostered by the visible and active leadership of senior managers.
OHSAS 18001
To facilitate OH+S management, you need to define, document and communicate the roles, responsibilities and authorities of personnel who manage, perform and verify activities that affect the OH+S risks of the organisation's activities, facilities and processes.
Ultimate responsibility for occupational health and safety rests with top management. You should appoint a member of top management (e.g. a Board or executive committee member) with particular responsibility to ensure the OH+S Management System is properly implemented and is performing to requirements in all locations and spheres of operation within the organisation.
Management have a duty to provide resources that are essential for implementing, controlling and improving the OH+S Management System.
The organisation’s management appointee needs to have defined roles, responsibilities and authority for:
- Ensuring the requirements of the OH+S Management System are established, implemented and maintained in accordance with the OHSAS specification
- Reporting on the performance of the OH+S Management System to top management for review and as a basis for improving the OH+S Management System.
Everyone with management responsibility needs to demonstrate their commitment to continual improvement of OH+S performance.